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My Profile Top News Reuters top ten news stories delivered to your inbox each day. Subscribe You are here: Home > News > Entertainment > Article Home Business & Finance News U.S. Politics International Technology Entertainment Film Music People Television Arts Industry Sports Lifestyle Oddly Enough Health Science Special Coverage Video Pictures Your View The Great Debate Blogs Weather Reader Feedback Do More With Reuters RSS Widgets Mobile Podcasts Newsletters Your View Make Reuters My Homepage Partner Services CareerBuilder Affiliate Network Professional Products Support (Customer Zone) Reuters Media Financial Products About Thomson Reuters 40 years later, Woodstock a thriving business Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:07am EDT Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] By Ray Waddell NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Back in 1969, Woodstock organizers billed their three-day festival as "An Aquarian Exposition." But although the concert became free when an expected crowd of 200,000 grew "half a million strong," it was conceived as a business proposition. And the business has endured. Woodstock Ventures, the firm that oversees the licensing and intellectual property related to the Woodstock festival, is still run by the original producers of the event. And for several decades now, that once ragtag group of hippies has evolved into -- if they weren't already -- good businessmen with savvy instincts. For Woodstock's 40th anniversary -- officially August 15-18 -- the breadth of projects and merchandise is staggering. Rhino and Sony will deliver albums of performances, Warner Bros. will release the original film and the Ang Lee-directed narrative feature "Taking Woodstock," VH1 and the History Channel will air a documentary by Barbara Koppel, several publishers will release books, Target will sell anniversary-themed merchandise, and Sony is launching a social networking/e-commerce site, Woodstock.com. "We're not perfect. There are some small decisions we would have changed here and there, but for the most part, if we weren't happy with the way something felt, then we didn't go ahead," says Joel Rosenman, one of the original organizers and now a partner in Woodstock Ventures. "And that's because what happened in 1969 and how it feels to us is more important than pretty much any commercial consideration." 'COULDN'T GET ARRESTED' What happened in 1969 is now rock 'n' roll history. Conceived by entrepreneurs Rosenman, Michael Lang, John Roberts and Artie Kornfeld amid a backdrop of social upheaval, the three-day concert had an impact that resonated far beyond the confines of Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, N.Y. With the formation of Woodstock Ventures before the festival, the producers also had the foresight to realize that the event was worth documenting in what ended up as the now-renowned Warner Bros. film and soundtrack album. "We couldn't get arrested when we were putting Woodstock together," Rosenman says. "We had no production credits among the four of us that would get anybody to take our phone call. The only way we booked bands was to pay them much more than they'd ever been paid before. And the only way we got a film deal was, two days before the event, Artie Kornfeld managed to talk Warner into it. (Director) Mike Wadleigh had to reach into his own pocket to buy film stock." The weekend of the event, Rosenman had a sound truck and a 12-track recording facility on-site and camera crews ready. The resulting film has captured the imagination of music fans ever since, creating a resource that instills interest in the event in one generation of music fans after another. Many of the products related to the 40th anniversary are endorsed by Woodstock Ventures and some are independent, such as unofficial memoirs and photographs. "Some of them are cool and some are pushing the margins a bit," Lang says. "But it's great that there's that interest, and the essence of what's important is really what it means to people in their hearts. The products are just people trying to capitalize on the interest, and that's OK. We're a capitalist society and all. But it points to the fact that Woodstock has maintained its place in our culture and our history." Woodstock the ideal has long interfaced with Woodstock the cash cow. Woodstock Ventures -- owned primarily by Rosenman's family and the Roberts family, with Lang retaining a minority ownership -- owns the Woodstock trademarks, including the iconic dove-on-guitar logo. And while Woodstock-related projects have tapped into consumer interest for decades, the brand has not been exploited or over-saturated, at least by its owners. "We haven't monetized it much, to be honest," says Lang, who recently published his memoir, "The Road to Woodstock," co-written with Holly George-Warren. "You can't describe Woodstock as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," Rosenman says. "It's much more the rainbow itself." So how has Woodstock maintained its profile in popular culture? Rosenman's answer is properly philosophical. "We had an event that challenged people's concept of community, and they responded to that challenge over that weekend by essentially re-creating a society that was in danger of falling apart," he says. "That's a pretty strong beacon, and I guess that beacon continues to shine on some of the darker moments in subsequent years." WOODSTOCKING UP While it's easy to be skeptical of the producers' idealism in the context of the cash flow at stake, Woodstock Ventures does retain a guiding hand on the use of the brand. "There are a number of different issues involved in merchandising, and many of them have to do with practical issues such as costs versus selling price, things you just can't get away from," Rosenman says. "There have been moments in Woodstock's past where we feel that it may have gotten away from us a little bit, but for the most part we're pretty strict about reviewing every bit of merchandise or every activity that might come out with Woodstock's logo or service mark on it." Continued... View article on single page Share: Del.icio.us Digg Mixx Yahoo! 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